Thus it came as somewhat of a surprise when last August it was revealed that Apple, Inc. (AAPL) has hired comex as an intern, ending his jailbreaking days. Typically, Apple does everything it can to punish its hackers-cum-i-product-enthusiasts (e.g. it kicked veteran OS X hacker Charlie Miller out of its developers program).

But Mr. Allegra seemed to be doing well, spending two internships at Apple -- one last fall, and then another last summer. But he abruptly announced on Twitter this week that he and Apple were parting ways.

According to a conversation with Forbes, the email in question was an offer to continue his employment remotely over the fall. When Mr. Allegra took some time to respond, Apple apparently got offended and abruptly rescinded the offer. He comments, "I wasn’t too happy about it, but it didn’t seem like I was able to fix it. So that’s what it is."

But according to comex, his relationship with Apple was already deteriorating, so it's possible this was only the last straw. He would not say what he meant by that.

The talented young security expert says he doesn't plan to work on new jailbreak tools for iOS in the near future. According toForbes, the unspoken reason for this is that likely his contract with Apple stipulates a period of restriction in which he cannot work on reverse engineering the company's products. That contract term may last years.

But comex has plenty to keep him occupied. He's finishing a degree at Brown University. And he may not be out of the reverse engineering/jailbreaking scene altogether, despite the possible iOS prohibition -- he released a post hinting that he's eyeing Japanese gaming veteran Nintendo Comp., Ltd.'s (TYO:7974) upcoming Wii U for some hacking TLC. He posts:

I agree. I missed out on a new-grad job many moons ago by not replying to an offer letter in time. When I contacted the company after the due date, they said it was too late. The HR guy also said that if I didn't have the organisation skills to reply to a job offer in time, then they probably didn't want to hire me after all. Harsh, but fair; I'm still pants at organising!

"If you look at the last five years, if you look at what major innovations have occurred in computing technology, every single one of them came from AMD. Not a single innovation came from Intel." -- AMD CEO Hector Ruiz in 2007